JSCh
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When Chinese say China is a nation since ancient time, one has to understand its meaning by looking at Chinese historical view.
China has this concept of mandate of heaven and the idea that the rightful state of being is that all people under the heaven(meaning China) has to be united under one nation or political/administrative unit. There is only one China/mandate of heaven. So when one dynasty falls, all the broken-up warlords/kings would compete for the orthodoxy of having the mandate of heaven. And they would fight each other until China is whole and united again. The winner would then establish the new dynasty. It is viewed more or less like the passing of generation in a family. Therefore even though the ruling family/dynasty has changed, but China is still China, that did not change. In that respect, in Chinese eye, China since millenniums ago is the same nation as it is today. This is similar to modern democratic nation when government and political party come and go but the nation stay the same.
Chinese historical view is taught since young in an orderly account of one dynasty to the next from prehistoric(meaning there are no preserved written continuous historical account) to historic to present day. Chinese has bother to made the effort of preserving historical account since 300B.C. Every new dynasty would record, collect and compiled the history of previous dynasties.
The end result is Chinese since ancient times has similar historical view of people of a modern nation. Chinese at all time would be able to recount China history in an orderly, continuous lineage and in a highly confident manner.
But true Chinese history is not without problem, there are a few discontinuous period in Chinese history that were ignored in order to maintain the clean, orthodox view of Chinese history. So in that sense, the Chinese orthodox historical view is also artificial as other historical view that other nation compiled to make a more modern and orderly view of their own history.
China has this concept of mandate of heaven and the idea that the rightful state of being is that all people under the heaven(meaning China) has to be united under one nation or political/administrative unit. There is only one China/mandate of heaven. So when one dynasty falls, all the broken-up warlords/kings would compete for the orthodoxy of having the mandate of heaven. And they would fight each other until China is whole and united again. The winner would then establish the new dynasty. It is viewed more or less like the passing of generation in a family. Therefore even though the ruling family/dynasty has changed, but China is still China, that did not change. In that respect, in Chinese eye, China since millenniums ago is the same nation as it is today. This is similar to modern democratic nation when government and political party come and go but the nation stay the same.
Chinese historical view is taught since young in an orderly account of one dynasty to the next from prehistoric(meaning there are no preserved written continuous historical account) to historic to present day. Chinese has bother to made the effort of preserving historical account since 300B.C. Every new dynasty would record, collect and compiled the history of previous dynasties.
The end result is Chinese since ancient times has similar historical view of people of a modern nation. Chinese at all time would be able to recount China history in an orderly, continuous lineage and in a highly confident manner.
But true Chinese history is not without problem, there are a few discontinuous period in Chinese history that were ignored in order to maintain the clean, orthodox view of Chinese history. So in that sense, the Chinese orthodox historical view is also artificial as other historical view that other nation compiled to make a more modern and orderly view of their own history.